


Shift the Gears

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9791669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: "You don’t talk about your feelings, so somebody has to,” Foggy said. His pride and stubbornness were at war with his sensitivity and his love for Matt; his sense of self-preservation prickled at the idea of coming back to Matt when Matt was the one who ended things. “Did you know Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?” Foggy picked up his bottle by the neck and laughed, once. “Guess I’m insane.”Foggy can't live without Matt. Coincidentally, Matt can't live without Foggy, either. Communication is key.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone had to fix this. I can't even think about Season 2 without tearing up. Goddamn them.
> 
> Title pulled from "[Wayne and Garth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOHK6T3y-ks)" by Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles.

Foggy only got forty-five-minutes for a lunch break from Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, and he typically spent those forty-five minutes at the restaurant at the end of the block with Marci. It wasn’t too expensive, it had a salad he enjoys, fries that were salty enough, and it didn’t remind him of Matt - all of which were requirements he had to check off before he entered any establishment, anymore. Marci already had a table when he got there on Thursday.

“How are you, sweetheart?” Marci asked, standing to kiss his cheek when reaches her table. He sighed and fell down into his chair.

“First of all, don’t call me ‘sweetheart,’ it makes me feel like you want something,” Foggy said, and Marci laughed.

“Who says I don’t?” she said, and winked. Foggy wondered how long it would take him to want her like he used to, instead of spending all of his free time thinking about how much he misses Matt. “What’s second of all?”

“The same as it always is.” Foggy thanked the waitress for the glass of water she gave him, and thanked her again when she took their orders and left. Marci sighed and lifted her water.

“You know, of the two of you, you were always the most disciplined,” she commented. Foggy started to shake his head before she was even done talking. “No, I’m serious, Foggy. You always knew what you wanted, and you’d do anything to get it. He never knew what he wanted.”

“I used to think I knew what he wanted,” Foggy told her. He picked up a bread roll from the basket in the middle of the table and snapped it in half. She watched him for a moment before leaning forward in her chair.

“It’s not your job to know what he wants, Foggy,” Marci replied. “It’s your job to know what _you_ want, and your job to _get_ it. He always got in the way of that.”

“Marci-

“ _Foggy_ ,” Marci interrupted. He rubbed at his face with one hand, bread abandoned. “I don’t know what happened between you two, I don’t know what he did to you, I don’t know why he left. I don’t know, and since you’re being uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the whole thing, I don’t think I’ll ever know. But I do know _you_ , Foggy.” She reached out, and Foggy hesitated before lifting his hand to hers. Her hand was cold; he closed his fingers around hers. “You’re a good man. You want the world to be better than it is. You’re doing everything you can to make that happen, and you’re doing it well. How can anyone fault you for that?”

“Life finds a way,” Foggy joked, and Marci turned her hand over to squeeze his.

“I’m serious, Foggy.” Marci squeezed his hand a second time before letting him go and leaning back in her chair in the same moment that the waitress returned with their food. “If all he’s going to do to you is stop you from doing what you want to do, what’s the point? He makes you miserable.”

“He used to make me happy,” Foggy reminded her. Marci shrugged with one shoulder, stabbing one of his fries with her fork. “ _Hey._ ”

“Finders keepers.” She bit half the fry off the fork. “Just because he used to make you happy doesn’t mean he does anymore, or that he even _can_ anymore.” She popped the rest of the fry in her mouth. “But he’s clearly making you miserable even when he isn’t here, so what do I know?”

“You know plenty,” he replied, dumping his dressing into his salad. He kept his eyes on the lettuce leaves as he tossed them around with unnecessary force.

“I’m just saying, we need to either work on getting over him, or work on getting back together with him,” Marci told him. “But either way, Foggy, you can’t keep going like this. It makes me sad to watch you do this.”

“I didn’t know you felt sadness,” he teased, and she clicked her tongue at him.

“I just had the chip put in,” she said, starting to pick at her chicken.

“‘We?’” Foggy asked, after considering what she had said in its totality.

“You know I’m always here for you, Foggy,” she said. She stuck her fork in her mouth before proceeding to talk around a mouthful of food. “If being with Matt will make you happy again, by all means, we’ll get him back and we’ll sit him down and tell him, ‘Matt, fuck you and your erratic and unhealthy behaviors, get over yourself.’”

“Is that what we’ll tell him?” Foggy asked, and Marci laughed.

“Along those lines.” She shrugged. “If being apart from Matt will make you happy, then, by God, we’ll work on that until you stop walking around like a puppy somebody kicked.” Foggy opened his mouth. “Yes, I know he was your best friend for a thousand years. We’ll work on it.”

Foggy forcibly directed the conversation to the case Marci had been working on for the last two weeks, but her words lingered in the back of his mind. They weren’t anything she hadn’t said before; nearly every time she saw him, she said something about him needing to get over Matt. Getting over Matt was a basic impossibility, though, Foggy felt. They had been best friends, like she said, for a thousand years; friends, roommates, lovers, partners - whatever they were to each other at any given point, their lives were tangled together. Having that taken from you was hard enough; feeling like you weren’t enough to have kept it in the first place was another whole issue.

Karen said a lot of the same, whenever he saw her, which he was the next night, on Friday. She usually asked first if he had heard from Matt at all. Now that Matt had, _apparently_ , paid Karen a visit, made his big vigilante reveal, and vanished into the night again, Karen was having a very similar pattern of withdrawal to Foggy’s. He had long since forgiven her for kissing Matt, for dating him, not that there was anything to forgive, as he had assured her. Matt was the one who needed to answer for that one, but Foggy thought he already guessed why Matt had done it.

When you’ve got a casual thing going since you were in college together, it’s hard to live without another person. Even if that other person was a placeholder for all the (bloody, violent, vigilante, possibly Greek, did he mention bloody) things you thought you were missing in your life. Pulling away from Foggy must have hurt Matt, too, or at least he assumed; he thought he might be too cocky to think that their separation had hurt Matt like it had hurt Foggy, but he liked to think that maybe Matt just needed comfort. Karen was comfortable.

“You’re so comfortable,” Foggy said out loud, because he thought she needed to know. She ran her fingers through his hair. They were sprawled on her sofa, Karen curled up at one end, Foggy stretched out with his head in her lap.

“I have to disagree, because I feel like my knee is digging into your skull,” Karen murmured, smiling, and Foggy opened his eyes to make eye contact and grin at her.

“Worth it.” He turned his face into her stomach and exhaled. Karen was doing better than he was. “What do you think he’s up to?”

“I think I’m up to wishing you’d stop thinking about what he’s up to,” Karen said, and Foggy was two vodka cranberries too deep to understand what she had said. “But, he’s probably out getting thrown off a roof, or something. Hopefully.”

Foggy snorted a laugh, then sighed, sitting up and dropping his head into his hands. Karen rubbed at his shoulder for a moment before standing up. Foggy watched her vanish into her kitchen, then come back with two bottles of water and a bag of chips. She tossed the bag to Foggy, who clumsily caught it against his chest.

“Hopefully,” Foggy agreed, a minute too late, and Karen reached out blindly to pat his head; she ended up grazing his ear. “Or, maybe not. Maybe he’s at home, being a normal human.”

“Why does he need to bother when we’re not there to pretend for?” Karen reminded him. She twisted the cap of his water bottle and handed it over. “He’s probably getting the shit kicked out of him, same as he always is. And he’ll go home and Claire will probably stitch him back together, because she’s an enabler.”

“I think he needs this,” Foggy murmured, and Karen fell back against the sofa with a sigh.

“But he doesn’t need _only_ this,” Karen said. “He needs real life just as much as he needs his daily asskickings. He might not be able to be a normal lawyer twenty-four-seven, but he can’t be a ruthless vigilante twenty-four-seven, either. You need both sides of the coin.”

“Darkness without light is an abyss,” Foggy said tiredly. Karen pushed his hair back from his forehead. “Light without darkness is blinding.”

“Well, then, he doesn’t need any help with that,” Karen replied blithely, and Foggy laughed so hard he started to cry. Karen rubbed his back. “Do you think we should go talk to him?”

“Do you want to go talk to him?” Foggy asked, and Karen sighed.

“Not really,” she admitted. “I don’t want to see him for a while, I think. I have my work at the Bulletin to work on, and I have… whatever Frank is,” she said, hesitantly, and Foggy moved the category of ‘Frank Castle’ from a non-entity in his life to a sidebar conversation that he and Karen needed to have. “Matt’s brilliant, but he can be _so_ stupid, Foggy. He can’t put a puzzle together.”

“He’s blind.”

“You know what I mean.” Karen took a sip of her own water, using it to procrastinate whatever she wanted to say. “He can’t put himself together, Foggy. He’s being too extreme. It’s unhealthy. He needs to balance himself out.”

“Justice is blind,” Foggy said, “but her scales aren’t always equally balanced.”

“Great metaphor. Bad motto.” Karen picked at the paper label on her bottle. “He needs to balance his scales, Foggy.”

“I know he does,” Foggy said, “but why is it my job to balance them?”

“It isn’t,” Karen replied. She went to continue, then stopped. “It isn’t. You’re right. It’s not your job to balance him out.” She watched him, and he sighed.

“But I want to.”

“But you want to.”

Foggy set his water bottle on her coffee table and rubbed at his face with the heels of his hands. “Do you think he’s home?”

“He has to eat and sleep eventually,” Karen said. “Just… Foggy, don’t get yourself hurt, please. Take care of yourself.”

“When have I not?” Foggy asked, standing up from the sofa. He stretched his hands high above his head and yawned. “I’ll head over there.”

“Be safe, Foggy,” Karen said, standing with him, leaning in to hug him tight, to kiss him on the cheek. She held onto him longer than she usually did; he held onto her even longer than that. “Text me when you get there. Call me when you can to let me know…”

“How he is?” Foggy finished for her. Karen shook her head.

“How you are,” Karen said. “Regardless of the outcome.”

Foggy let her kiss his cheek again before he picked up his coat and his phone charger and head out. Hell’s Kitchen was fairly quiet, which probably half-had to do with the late-spring chill and the light rain trickling down, and half-had to do with Matt and his band of merry men starting their clean-up-the-streets Fight Club volunteer program. Foggy spent most of his walk between Karen’s apartment and Matt’s trying to compose some sort of speech to give Matt that would sum things up before Matt could leave. It was an incredibly hard task when he didn’t even know what he wanted to say to him.

Getting to Matt’s was mostly muscle memory; it was a walk Foggy had taken thousands of times, and by the time he got to Matt’s building, he realized he had run on autopilot nearly the whole way there. He exhaled, and his breath fogged up the air in front of him. He shot Karen a text to let her know he had arrived, the raindrops oozing down his phone screen. She sent back a thumbs-up and a Spotify link to “Eye of the Tiger.”

Foggy exhaled, shutting his eyes before shoving the front door to his apartment building in just the right place to get inside. He thought, if Matt was inside, he might have buzzed him in, so he must not be home; then again, he might just not want to see Foggy. He had made that abundantly clear the last time he had seen him, and the time before that, and most of the times before that. The stairs up to Matt’s apartment had never seemed higher, or longer, or more plentiful; Foggy took each one slowly, with care, like it mattered. Matt probably didn’t want to see him. Matt probably didn’t even want to _know_ him anymore, and wasn’t that just kick-you-in-the-ass, stab-you-in-the-heart wonderful.

Standing in front of Matt’s door used to be exciting; it used to mean he would get a drink, a hug, a nap, a kiss, a fuck, a smile. It used to mean late nights working and late nights doing nothing but spending time together. Now, it means he’ll probably get yelled at; now, it means fighting, and rejection, and a neon sign blazing in his eyes while Matt lists all the reasons Foggy’s no good for him anymore. Foggy sighed; he knocked anyways.

There was no answer. Foggy didn’t expect one. He tried to the doorknob, just to see if it was locked, and it wasn’t. Foggy was not expecting that. He tentatively pushed the door open.

“Hi, Matt?” Foggy called hesitantly. No answer. “Please don’t kick my ass for walking in. I was kind of expecting you to be home and now I’m worried you’re dead on the floor, and I don’t think I’m ready to find that.” He closed the door behind him gently, just in case Matt was sleeping. The shouting might have already woken him if he was, though, if Foggy’s heartbeat hadn’t done the trick at the bottom of the stairs. Whatever. “Matt?”

Entering the apartment provided no immediate clues to Matt’s whereabouts, but the fact that he wasn’t dead on the living room floor, or the bedroom floor, or the kitchen floor - just, anywhere, really - was promising. Foggy even checked the roof access, but, nope, no bodies. He let himself back into Matt’s apartment and let himself survey the area more generally, without the haze of fear and is-Matt-dead-ness. Matt had let the place get a little cluttered and messy; he must not have been spending too much time in his actual living space.

With a sigh and a trash bag, Foggy set to cleaning up, getting rid of an uncountable amount of bottles, more than a few bloodied rags, some food that he didn’t know how Matt and his super-sniffer could stand to be around, since it had clearly gone bad. He took the trash out and set to straightening out Matt’s loose papers, his first aid kits, his cabinets and refrigerator. Checking the time, and realizing he probably wouldn’t sleep that night regardless, he put a load of laundry in the washing machine in the basement for him. Having done everything he could immediately find to do, Foggy opened the fridge to steal a beer, since Matt probably owed him _at least_ that. Inside was the casserole he had ignored from earlier (complete with a sticky note that read _Sorry about your shoulder. Eat your sorrows away. Claire_ , like Matt could read it, but he probably just felt the pen indentations, since he’s a fucking supermoron) and a few bottles of cheap, shitty beer.

“ _You_ should be making _Claire_ casseroles, with everything she has to put up with from you,” Foggy grumbled to himself, stealing one of the bottles and shutting the fridge. “At least Stick isn’t here. It’s not like _he’d_ leave a casserole, though. Maybe a throwing star or a backpack bomb or something, but not something that would actually _help_ you, God forbid a human man _eats_ and _sleeps_ and-”

“Foggy?” Matt said from the window, and Foggy absolutely jumped, absolutely clamped a hand over his chest where his heart had leapt, but luckily did _not_ scream or drop his bottle. He felt even more lucky he hadn’t embarrassed himself when he realized Matt wasn’t alone.

“Oh, it’s just Foggy,” Jessica said, crouching in the window behind Matt. Luke peered in from the fire escape behind her. “You couldn’t tell it was him from his heartbeat? He was talking to himself, man. You know his voice.”

“I thought he was at home,” Matt said quietly, and that was something Foggy had to remember for later, that Matt could apparently hear him from _here_. At his _home_. Fucking Matt.

“Well, looks like you’re safe, my dude,” Danny said, face appearing behind Luke’s, chin hooking on Luke’s shoulder. “Have a good one. See you tomorrow for a fresh ass-kicking.” He offered a wave at Foggy, which Foggy returned hesitantly. “Foggy, my man. I hope you’re keeping it real.”

“To the best of my abilities, Danny,” Foggy replied, and Danny gave him an a-ok hand signal before vanishing from the fire escape. Luke offered a wave and a nod; Foggy liked the strong-and-silent type right then. Felt like less pressure to perform.

“Hey, you good?” Jessica asked Matt in a low voice, and Foggy looked down the barrel of his bottle to give them the illusion of privacy. Whatever Matt did in response made Jessica hop through the window, and Foggy’s heart seized for a moment.

“Hey,” Jessica said, suddenly too close, and Foggy exhaled sharply. “You good?”

The question took Foggy a moment to process; when it did, he just frowned and said, “What?”

“Are you good here alone with him? Do you feel comfortable?” Jessica clarified, and Foggy’s brows knit together. He glanced at Matt over Jessica’s shoulder, but he was staring down at the floor, mouth drawn down, helmet still on.

“I don’t think he’d hurt me,” Foggy answered. Jessica clapped him on the shoulder. It hurt a little.

“I don’t, either, bud,” Jessica said. She glanced back at Matt, then squeezed Foggy’s shoulder and left, hopping back out the window and immediately leaping from the fire escape to the ground. Foggy heard Luke mutter something below as he caught her, but the sounds cut off when Matt slid the window shut.

“Why are you here, Foggy?” Matt asked. He pulled his helmet up and off, letting it fall to the ground. Foggy tsked at him.

“I _just_ cleaned this place, Matt, you could _try_ not to dirty it up again the second you walk in the- window.” Foggy left his beer on the counter and crossed the room, slowly, giving Matt time to move if he wanted. He picked up the Daredevil helmet, and Matt just kept his head turned in Foggy’s direction. No visible cuts or bruises were on his face, save one yellowed, fading bruise that must have been plenty old. His hair was all tousled from the helmet, his face was all flushed, and- _Jesus_ , Foggy, _focus_.

“You cleaned up?” Matt asked. He raised his head, probably sensing the same trash. He frowned again. “Are you doing laundry?”

“Somebody has to,” Foggy answered. “You need clothes to wear. You can’t go through life either naked or in a Halloween costume.”

“What are you doing here?” Matt asked again, and Foggy sighed.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“But you don’t…” Matt started, then stopped. “But we’re not-”

“Whatever you think we’re not, is probably true,” Foggy said, cutting off his stilted attempts to talk. “But we were. Or still are. I still care about you, Matt, Jesus. I don’t want you to _die_. That seems a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“You’re mad at me,” Matt said. Foggy sighed again. He had a feeling there might be a lot of that tonight.

“Of course I am,” Foggy answered, and Matt visibly deflated. Foggy pulled himself back from taking Matt’s wrist, forcing himself instead to withdraw his hand and retreat back to the kitchen.

“I know you’re too emotionally stilted to talk about all those feelings bottled up in there, but I’d like to think that you might miss me even a little bit, even if I was just a deadweight to you,” Foggy said. Matt opened his mouth- “-hey, buddy, it’s fine. I prefer honesty to anything else. I just need you to be honest with me, man.”

“I miss you,” Matt admitted softly. “You’re not a deadweight.”

“Well, regardless of my living or dead weight, you don’t talk about your feelings, so somebody has to,” Foggy continued, squashing down his bubbling emotions, threatening to boil over and be too much for him to handle. His pride and stubbornness were at war with his sensitivity and his love for Matt; his sense of self-preservation prickled at the idea of coming back to Matt when Matt was the one who ended things. “Did you know Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?” Foggy picked up his bottle by the neck and laughed, once. “Guess I’m insane.”

“Foggy-”

“I shouldn’t have come, but I just can’t give up on you,” Foggy said, all in a rush. Matt blinked at him. The corners of his eyes crinkled a little bit, his mouth turning down. “I just can’t, Matt.”

“Foggy.” Matt stopped, swallowed. His eyes looked a little red already.

“I’m still mad at you,” Foggy reiterated. “Just so we’re clear. You didn’t really do a good job of pulling away. Just fading away isn’t really the way to handle your relationship with your law partner and best friend, I’m going to notice what you’re doing.”

“I thought it was better that way,” Matt told him. He worked at getting out of the suit, unfastening and unzipping all over himself to slide it off. “You don’t get it, Foggy, you can’t understand what it’s like.”

“I think I understand more than you give me credit for,” Foggy answered, trying not to get distracted by Matt becoming vulnerable in front of him, stripping down to the boxer shorts and wife beater he was wearing under the suit. He had missed him a _lot_. “You think I don’t want to do whatever I can to help this city?”

“You don’t get what I have to do,” Matt repeated. “You can’t get it.”

“Here’s the thing, Matt,” Foggy said. “I _do_ get it. Just because I can’t hear everything that’s going on in this city doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s happening. There’s something going wrong literally every second I’m standing here. But I have my way of doing things, you know, with a healthy balance of using the law to help and using my words and using my energy on healthy things, Matt. And I know _you_.”

“You don’t,” Matt said, jaw set, and fuck if _that_ didn’t hurt. “Not all of me.”

“Matt,” Foggy said back, and Matt’s head lifted in his direction. “How can you think I’d be this close to you for this long and not know you? I know that you want to do everything you can to help. I know how strong you are, and that you want to use that to help. I know what you want to do, and I know why you want to do it, and I know _you_. What I disagree with is your methods.”

“You can’t argue that it’s not effective, Foggy,” Matt said, and Foggy dragged his hands down his face.

“Oh, my _God_ , Matt, listen to what I’m saying instead of what you want to hear!” Foggy exclaimed, and Matt frowned at him.

“I _am_ listening to what you’re saying, and you don’t understand-”

“Jesus Christ, Matt, I understand, I’m trying to tell you-”

“You don’t get it, Foggy! You can’t get-”

“Maybe give me a little more credit than that, Matt, because I do get it-”

“But it’s effective, and it _works_ , and somebody needs to do it and I’m not even alone in it anymore, Foggy, there’s more than what can be done just with law-”

“And I get that, Matt, will you just _listen_ -”

“All I ever do is _listen_ -”

“Well, that’s just straight-up bullshit, because you only listen to what you want to hear, whatever fits your narrative to justify whatever it is you’re doing at the time-”

“ _That’s_ bullshit and you know it, Foggy-”

“Matt!” Foggy exploded, and Matt’s mouth snapped shut, jaw clicking harshly. “You can beat people up all you want. That’s a part of you. That Catholic guilt that fuels you, that… I don’t know, the energy you have, it’s always been a part of you. That’s not what I’m upset about. I’m upset about how you shut everyone else out of your life when you’re doing it.”

Matt opened his mouth, then closed it.

“We want to help,” Foggy added. Matt frowned in his direction.

“‘We?’”

“I,” Foggy corrected. “ _I_ want to help. But, Matt, I can’t help if you keep cutting me off. I get what you’re doing; you just need to balance your life. If I was in the office with you all day, then left to spend all night drinking and getting in bar fights, you’d be pretty pissed with me, wouldn’t you? Or, used to.”

“I’d be upset,” Matt admitted, quietly.

“Exactly.” Foggy took a step forward, then back. He put the bottle back on the counter to stop himself from dropping it. “You have to balance your life out, Matt. This isn’t healthy. You can do your vigilante thing, I’ve come to terms with that. I’m still not thrilled about the lying, but the vigilante fighting thing I can handle. What I _can’t_ handle is when you’re not balancing everything. You need to find manageable ways to do what you’re doing. Allotted time for your lawyering, your Daredevil-ing, your friends, your… Karen.” Foggy stared hard at Matt. He knew Matt knew he was. “I want you to be safe and healthy. I want you to take care of yourself.”

“I can take care of myself,” Matt said softly. They both knew that was a lie.

“Come on, Matt, I don’t even have your super-senses and I know that wasn’t true,” Foggy said. “Come _on_ . It’s okay to want adrenaline rushes and to do the right thing. You’re talking to a lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen. I _get_ wanting to do the right thing, and maybe doing some wrong things to do it. I also bungee-jumped once. You can punch people and still balance that with other healthy behaviors.” Foggy stopped picking at the peeling edge of Matt’s counter and focused on Matt instead. “Adrenaline rushes are good. Living life in one big adrenaline rush, though? That’s _bad_ , Matt.” He hesitated. “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

“And we have burned so very, very brightly,” Matt finished. “Thanks, Tyrell.”

“Do you see what I’m saying, Matt?” Foggy asked, and Matt hesitated for a long time before he nodded.

“I’m not happy,” Matt said. “But I’m satisfied.”

“Let’s see if we can’t do both,” Foggy replied, and Matt visibly relaxed, his shoulders sloping, his body releasing the tension and falling into a more comfortable stance. Foggy took three deep breaths.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come visit you,” Matt said. “When you were in the hospital.”

“Are we doing everything tonight? Because that’s fine, get it all done at once, I just wasn’t sure- Yeah, that’s fine.” Foggy picked up his beer and left the kitchen to sit on the couch. Matt hesitated, then went into his bedroom. Foggy watched, taking a sip from his beer, before Matt returned in sweatpants and a sweatshirt without sleeves. Sweatvest.

“I am sorry. I just didn’t think…” Matt paused. “I didn’t think.”

“I know you didn’t,” Foggy said. “But I’m not under any delusions, Matt. I know we were… something. But you don’t want to do that anymore. And that’s fine, Matt, for real. Like, I’m sad, but I’m also not going to stop helping you just because you don’t want to be my partner or my fuck buddy or my boyfriend or my friend, take your pick, whichever you do or don’t want to be.”

“Foggy, what…” Matt’s brows pulled together. “I want to be your friend.”

Knife twisted. Foggy swallowed, then laughed. “I’m your friend, Matt. You already are my friend.”

“I have to fix things,” Matt said, and Foggy laughed, for real this time.

“That’s an understatement,” Foggy said. “Just, remember, Matt. Law is important, too. Helping doesn’t have to be all fists in the darkness and sad broody violence and being alone all the time. It’s fighting what’s wrong and defending justice. You can do both. You just have to balance them. And your social interactions, because Karen is worried about you. So am I.”

“I’m worried about _you_ ,” Matt replied. Foggy shook his head.

“I just shook my head,” he said. “Do you remember what happened with Elektra in college? Sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, when Matt flinched at her name, but Matt rocked forward a little bit, his socked feet landing solidly on his floor with a little _thump_.

“I do,” Matt said.

“You did kind of the same thing,” Foggy reminded him. “You always get way too caught up in her. It clouds your judgment. She’s not good for you, Matt.”

“She understood what I needed,” Matt repeated, just like he had before. Foggy was glad Matt couldn’t see him; he could probably hear his heart lulling like a wounded animal, or taste the tears in the air, or whatever, but at least Foggy didn’t have to make eye contact with him while it happened. “She got me. She challenged me. She could give me what I needed, she understood me like nobody else ever did. She got me in a way nobody could.”

Foggy wondered what would have happened if Elektra was normal, if Matt would already be married off and participating in some fight club somewhere. “Do you love her?”

“Yes,” Matt said, without pausing to think. Foggy wished he had. “I tried to get her to leave with me. I told her we could be normal together, to settle down and…” _Get married, live together_ , were probably the ends of that sentence that Matt didn’t finish.

“So, you know that what you were doing wasn’t normal,” Foggy said. Matt huffed a forced, fake laugh. Very dry. Very Matt.

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “But I wanted to do it.”

“So, she gave you what you needed,” Foggy said, taking hold of the knife handle in his own chest and giving it a twist himself. “She understood you in a way nobody could. Great. Maybe talk to Karen about that, she’s smarter and more understanding than you give her credit for.”

“Why Karen?” Matt asked, and Foggy scoffed.

“You know why Karen, Matt, don’t act dumb, I still spend time with her,” Foggy told him. “I know she knows about your extracurricular activities, she told me. She told me you two were also close.”

“Foggy, I’m sorry,” Matt said, without preamble. “We weren’t- At the time, _we_ weren’t-”

“Matt, I’m not…” Foggy stopped, thinking. “Well. I am. I am upset, but I get it, I guess.”

“Foggy.” Matt stood up. “Fight back.”

“Wha- Matt, what?”

“Don’t just take it,” Matt said. “I did something bad. Yell at me.”

“It’s not like we were official or anything.”

“That load of shit might convince Marci, or Karen, or- or whoever you talk to. But we’ve been together for a long time, and just because we don’t call each other… It’s not okay for me to have done that.”

Foggy exhaled shakily. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I slept with Marci again.”

“After I left?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s different.”

“ _Matt_.”

“It _is_ , Foggy,” Matt repeated, firm. “Yell at me. Do _something_.”

“I can yell at you, if that’s what you really want,” Foggy said, and Matt nodded, his face red and edging towards crumpling. “Fine. Matt, it’s shitty that you left me without giving me any reason, and that you abandoned me without giving me time to prepare for it, and that you kissed Karen and did… I don’t know what you did with Elektra, but whatever you did with her. It’s _shitty_ that you left the firm, and it’s shitty that you left me, and… It’s just. It’s shitty, Matt.”

“I know,” Matt said softly, voice breaking. God _damn_ it. “And I’m so _sorry_ , Foggy. I can fix it.”

“Start with yourself first,” Foggy said, standing. Matt’s hand shot out and grabbed Foggy’s wrist.

“Please don’t go,” Matt said, sounding like the words were dragged out of him. “Please, I can’t keep doing this without you. I can’t go back to just… I can’t not be Daredevil. But I can’t not be Matt, either.”

“Matt, you are Daredevil,” Foggy reminded him. “You’re both. They’re not two separate men. We have to work on you reconciling them.”

“Okay,” Matt exhaled. “Okay.” He seemed to remember too late that he was still holding onto Foggy’s wrist; he tightened his grip, then released him. Foggy’s hand swung back, cold now.

“You should talk to Karen,” Foggy said.

“I will.”

“But really. She could be good for you. She gets you, too. Just because I wasn’t enough doesn’t mean she-”

“What do you mean?” Matt interrupted, brow furrowed. His eyes were red again. “Foggy, of course you’re enough.”

“I mean, not like… Karen, or like Elektra, though.” Foggy dropped back down onto the sofa, and Matt followed him, perching at the edge of his coffee table. “Do you know what I mean?”

“No, Foggy, you’re enough, you’re more than enough,” Matt told him. His face officially gave in and completely crumpled, tears springing to his eyes, and Foggy felt his own face going hot. Shit. “Just because… Foggy, don’t think you’re not _enough_ for me. I’m not enough for _you_.”

Foggy laughed without humor. “Matt, buddy, that’s bullshit.”

“It’s not,” Matt said, leaning in, pressing his forehead to his knees and exhaling sharply for a moment before he reached out and grabbed Foggy’s hands. “Is that why you left?”

“Matt, _you’re_ the one who left,” Foggy reminded him. “ _You_ left. I stayed at the firm, I stayed with you, I kept coming back even when I shouldn’t have. _You’re_ the one who ended things.”

“I wish I hadn’t,” Matt said, softly, wistfully. Foggy pulled one of his hands free to brush tears off of Matt’s cheek, moving impulsively. Matt tipped his face into Foggy’s palm. “ _Foggy_. You’re enough. Please, believe me.”

“I understand you,” Foggy said, “but I don’t know if that means that I’ll be enough for you.”

“You’ve always been more than enough, Foggy, please,” Matt said. “Please. You’re my… Foggy, you’re my best friend. I love you. You’re my partner, I love you, I want you back however I can get you.”

“We have to work on balancing your life out,” Foggy said, and Matt nodded, twisting his head down to press into his own forearm.

“I can’t keep going like this,” Matt confessed, voice small and hidden in his skin. “I can’t. It’s killing me.”

Foggy put a hand on the back of Matt’s neck, like he could leech their pain out and let it drip onto the floor. “Then we’ll fix it.”

“This is a part of me,” Matt told him. “It’s a part of myself I need to work through. I need to live it.”

“It’s not you I have a problem with,” Foggy replied. “It never has been. It was how you were acting that I had a problem with. You pushed me away, ignored me. You hurt me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Foggy combed his fingers through Matt’s hair. “We’re fixing it. But our relationship can’t keep going this way.” Matt choked on a sob, suddenly, and Foggy lifted his face, startled and confused by his tears. “Hey, Matt, what the shit? Why are you crying?”

“I didn’t think our relationship was going to keep going at all,” Matt told him. “Foggy, I _missed_ you.”

“I missed you, too,” Foggy said. “Matt, I’d never give up on you. Ever. I couldn’t.”

Matt laughed tearfully. “I’m going to be better.”

“You’re already the best,” Foggy assured him. “We just have to balance you out. Make you healthy.”

“Okay,” Matt said softly. “Okay.” He hesitated; Foggy waited. “You’re more than enough, Foggy.”

“Matt, it’s-”

“It’s not fine, or okay,” Matt said, lifting his head. “I want you to know, it wasn’t about you.”

“It kind of was.”

“But not how you think it was,” Matt said. “I promise, you were enough. Feel _my_ heart, here-” Matt picked up Foggy’s hand, brought it to his throat; his pulse fluttered under Foggy’s fingertips. “-feel that? I’m not lying to you.”

“Your heart is really fast,” Foggy commented, and Matt’s eyes settled near his mouth, unseeing. Foggy stopped himself from touching Matt’s face.

“That doesn’t mean I’m lying,” Matt reminded him. “Of course it’s beating fast.”

“I missed you,” Foggy repeated, and Matt nodded, a little too quickly.

“I missed you, too,” Matt said. He leaned in, slightly. “Can I-”

“Please,” Foggy said, and Matt shoved their mouths together, slightly too rough at first, gentling as he went, wrapping his hands up in Foggy’s shirt and tugging him closer. Foggy laughed and let himself be pulled.

“You promised me,” Foggy said, against Matt’s lips, into his mouth, and Matt pulled back a little to let him speak. “You promised me I wouldn’t lose you.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I didn’t break it. You’ve never lost me. Just… I just lost sight of you. What’s important. I’m sorry.”

“ _I’m_ sorry,” Foggy said, reeling Matt in to kiss again. Matt cupped Foggy’s face in his hands, holding him close.

“Please stay tonight,” Matt said, tears starting to stop, face red, mouth almost smiling. “Please. Please stay.”

“Tomorrow’s the first day of your normalcy training regiment if I stay,” Foggy warned him. Matt nodded his head eagerly.

“Okay,” he agreed. He stood, yanking Foggy to his feet. “That’s fine. Just, stay with me, please.”

Foggy stayed.

The next day, they started the Normalcy Training, as Foggy was calling it, and was planning on getting t-shirts made with that written on it. Foggy made them breakfast with what he could find in Matt’s cabinets, he finished the laundry he had forgotten about the night before, and he helped Matt get dressed in normal clothes before they set out into the city.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked, his hand tucked into the crook of Foggy’s arm, his cane held loosely, uselessly in his other hand.

“There’s no way you don’t already know,” Foggy said. “You can probably smell where we are.”

“It smells like shit.”

“Welcome to New York.”

Matt smiled. “Are we going to our office?”

“I still have our plaque at my place,” Foggy told him, pushing the front door of their building open and leading Matt up the stairs to their old office.

“Who’s here now?” Matt asked. Foggy paused. “Foggy?”

“We are,” Foggy told him. Matt’s brow furrowed. “I make a _lot_ of money at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, alright? I didn’t see the point of letting this place go, it’s a steal and it’s worth holding on to. Just in case we… Or just in case you… Just in case. If either of us needed it.” He pushed open the door to their office. “Real estate is a good investment, Murdock. Maybe I’ll become a real estate tycoon.”

“A roller coaster tycoon, maybe, but not real estate,” Matt replied, walking into their office. He folded his cane up and tucked it into his jacket. “What do you do with Hogarth?”

“I’m their vigilante lawyer, but I don’t think I’m doing exactly what they want me to be doing,” Foggy said, “because I mostly end up defending them.”

“Of course you do.”

“Because I know the difference between the easy thing and the right thing.”

“Of course you do,” Matt repeated. He ran his fingers over the top of Karen’s old desk.

“We’d probably need a new secretary if we decided to come back, because I don’t think Karen will leave the Bulletin,” Foggy told him. Matt looked slightly shell-shocked. “Matt? Didn’t I tell you she was-”

“Did you want to come back?” Matt asked, and Foggy frowned.

“I was planning on it, buddy. At some point, anyways,” Foggy told him. “We probably have to work our way up to it and- oh, hey, honey, no, turn that frown upside down.” He reached out, and Matt took his hand, let Foggy reel him in. “We can’t take you anywhere, can we?”

“Guess not,” Matt laughed tearfully into Foggy’s shoulder. He turned his head to press his face into Foggy’s cheek. “I thought you wanted to be done with Nelson and Murdock.”

“I thought _you_ wanted to be done with Nelson and Murdock,” Foggy said, and Matt’s confused face spoke volumes. “Okay, we’ll talk about that, too. New policy of complete honesty. Full disclosure. Deal?”

“Deal,” Matt agreed, voice muffled against Foggy’s skin. His breath was hot where he pressed his face into Foggy’s neck and took a deep breath before pulling away. “Why’d you bring me here?”

“Oh, I love making you cry. Come on, let’s go get hot dogs or something.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Then let’s go to Josie’s, I have an apology to make.”

“It’s _ten in the morning_.”

“Excuses, excuses, Murdock. Welcome to the life of the normal man, we’re always thirsty. Hey!” Foggy held up his hand once they got outside the building, whistling through his teeth, and a taxi pulled over right before he launched them into the road. Foggy bundled Matt up into the taxi and gave the taxi driver directions.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked, and Foggy leaned back in his seat in the back of the taxi.

“Strip club,” Foggy answered without missing a beat. Matt laughed.

“I’ve missed your ability to lie while sounding like you’re telling the truth,” Matt said. Foggy grinned and picked up Matt’s hand to press to his mouth.

“They’re not lies, they’re jokes, like you,” Foggy said, and Matt laughed again, pushing his head into Foggy’s shoulder.

“I missed you.”

“Thanks, parrot.”

“I missed you.”

“Oh my _God_. Also, are you going out tonight?”

Matt hesitated. “Jessica asked-”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Foggy assured him, “if you are. I just want to know so I can plan for it. Like anything else in our schedules. Step two in the Normalcy Training.”

“Will I have to apologize to everyone I’ve wronged?” Matt asked, and Foggy shrugged.

“At some point,” he told him. “Oh, look at that, we’re here.”

“Why didn’t we walk-”

“Thanks, my guy,” Foggy said, paying their driver and pulling Matt out of the taxi with him. The water seemed to stretch out forever in front of them. Foggy wondered what this place smelled like to Matt. “Hey, what’s it smell like here?”

“Salty.” Matt wound his fingers with Foggy’s. “Why are we here?”

“Normalcy Training,” Foggy told him. “We’re on a date. It’s what normal people do.”

Matt’s breath caught, and Foggy squeezed his hand. “Hey, bud. Sunshine. Light of my life. Pull it together.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Matt said.

“Funny,” Foggy said. “I think the same thing all the time.”

“You’re hilarious,” Matt said dryly. “No, Foggy, I’m serious. You deserve better than this.”

“I deserve exactly this, and so do you, dear, so quit martyring yourself. St. Matthew. I’d prefer to just have Matt, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Matt said. Foggy knocked their shoulders together. “I’m feeling very lucky right now.”

“Ditto, darling,” Foggy said.

“Foggy,” Matt huffed, exasperated, smiling. Foggy grinned. “I’m serious.”

“Me, too. And I know you are. You’re a super emotional guy. _So_ sensitive, Matty, I know you too well. But you’re also emotionally stilted, which is fine. We’ll work on it.” Foggy brought Matt’s hand up to kiss the back of. “You’re not going to lose me.”

“Again.”

“Again,” Foggy allowed. “We’re just going to have to work through some stuff.”

Matt’s unseeing eyes, hiding behind his glasses, stared out absently over the water. Foggy stared up at him in response. Matt smiled.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Babe.”

“ _Foggy._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus Christmas, please come talk to me about Daredevil.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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